Classic Poem

For some time now, in the heart of Seoul
they have heard the strangest sound.
Some people quake like aspen leaves
and sweat freezing streams at this sound . . .
A strange business; and stranger still,
these are guys with money, the real
big-load operators.

K'ung.
— There, that sound.
K'ung .
A canister of tear gas bursting?
No.
K'ung.
The war starting? An A-bomb
exploding? A Hirohito fart? Nixon's cough?
No.
K'ung.
The Red Army salute guns greeting big-noses
in T'ien-An-Men Square?
No? Then what?

K'ung .
There, do you hear it?
K'ung .
Does anyone know the story, where
the sound of that K'ung came from?
K'ugung, K'ung .
Listen to the people, and you shall hear
the story of a sound.

It wasn't in Russia, China, Japan,
or America either, but here in Korea,
the eastern part of Seoul,
where the dust swarms up in Ch'ongyangni,
and beyond it lie the coal-black fluids
of Chongnang Brook.
Jammed together down its banks,
the squatter shacks perch in bunches wherever they fit,
rattling this way, trembling that
in the slightest breeze blowing by.
Way in the back of the darkest corner
of the most ramshackle shack
lived Ando, up from the country
to find his fortune.

Ando worked like an ox,
but was timid as a mouse, simple
as a sheep — the harmless sort
who doesn't need laws to live right.
But some strange twist of fate,
some lousy inheritance from a previous life
made whatever he tried
go bad.
It might start well, but it wouldn't come out;
what looked good for a while just wouldn't turn out.

Get married?
How could he? He couldn't find a girl friend.
Buy a house?
Not a chance. He couldn't get the rent for a
whole room.
He couldn't find money for food, and if he looked
like he might get a job, well,
from this day to that day to the very next day
they kept putting him off till it went up in smoke.

" No backer? No go here. "
" No school tie? Nothing doing. "
" No deposit? No return. "
" No soup? No dessert. "

Without any money, and no one to help,
there wasn't a deal he could start.
The shake-down artists shook him,
the rake-off operators raked him,
till not a thing was left.
He could yell all he pleased — it was no use.
Or fling himself down in a rage — no help.
He could struggle, kick, open his eyes wide
and glare all around, or just close them,
resigned to his fate:
it made no difference,
it was all the same, and no good.

He began to think of hanging himself,
but couldn't find a rafter.
Gas wouldn't do — the windows were full of holes.
He couldn't slip away
on a mixture of poison and wine —
there was no money for a cup
and nothing else to use,
so no way, he had no way:
no way to rest, no way to put his feet
down on the ground and just stand.

Just once to have the guts
to stand up firm on his two feet
would have brought down a flood of accusations
for crimes never heard of before, never seen, never imagined.

So what else could he do? Spring summer fall winter,
day and night, rushing from place to place
what did he get? Not a dog's nose,
not a rat's ass, not a blackbird's belly.
He would rush to the front, then race to one side;
race to another side, and rush to the back,
stand on his hands,
drag himself drizzling shit.

If he earned ten won , a hundred was taken away;
earn a hundred, and lose a thousand.
Three-hundred-and-sixty-odd days, one after the other
without a break, first this guy, then that one:
guys with good connections, well-developed
greed and guile, the ones with gangs of cronies:
this one with " Official " stamped on his forehead,
that one with " Junior-Grade " on the bridge of his nose,
three times three makes nine, the plate goes
round and round;
the guy with " swindler " in his smiling eyes and nimble tongue;
the one with " Fraud! Fraud! " flashing from his golden teeth . . .

Tortured, chewed, battered and bit, kicked, bloodied, trampled into the ground;
even the tiny bit of money he had hidden away under his clothes
for the journey back home was stripped away. He was squeezed flat,
beaten shapeless as a bowl of mush,
half dead, a walking corpse, and then what? All over again:

" Enemy agent! Commie Flag!
But buy me some noodles and I'll let you go. "
" No! Give me the training instead. "
" You can't! "
" Control yourself! Where is your haircut?
Pay for the ticket and beat it! "
" But I can't get a haircut; I don't have the money. "
" You have to! "
" Unsightly shack! Settle up for the flies and get out! "
" But I rent by the month. "
" You can't! "
" Three un's and five no's! Three fives is fifteen, so you owe fifteen hundred! "
" But I haven't had a meal in five days! "
" No excuses! "
" Pay up in advance! Settle your taxes! Your fines! Your whatever is left!
Your security! "
" I'd rather jump in a cesspool and drown! "
" You're not allowed to die! "
Rice money, clothes money, shoes money, medicine money;
money for pickles, money for soy sauce, money for coal, de dum di di.

Add to this, add to this money
money for congratulations,
and add to this money
money for condolences,
and on top of this,
for contributions;
on top of this,
for the local officers,
on top of which,
the price of going back and forth,
on top of which,
the money lender,
on top of whom,
way, way on top, this and that,
add it up, and add it up,
until every which way, from bottom to top
Ando was wrapped up tight.

What was he to do? What else could he do
but race around frantically trying to earn a rat tail's worth?
Like a rabid dog in snow, or a tiger pup with its tail on fire he raced round and round:
one foot up, the other down;
this one up, and that one down.
If he raised this foot, he put the other one down,
lower the foot and raise the other.
Veering this way, lurching that,
hop, hop; jump, jump,
at his frantic pace he sets out.
Chongno, Myongdong, Mugyodong, and Tadong:
real estate, insurance, finance office, trader's;
he was an errand boy, office boy, janitor, watchman.
He went through each one once,
then on to Tongdŭngp'o, Sihŭng, Mallidong, and Ŭlchiro:
textile factory, iron caster, sugar mill, clothes maker;
he was a factory hand, a furnace man, a dispatcher, whatever,
racing around trying this and trying that.

Then Kupabal, Ch'andong, Changanp'yong, and Kwach'on;
peddling stew in It'aewon, radish leaves in Tamsimni.
At South Gate he sold pigs' bellies, and puffer eggs at East Gate,
hoop-sticks at Kwanghwamun, silkworm larvae in Mugyodong.
At construction sites he was a dirt carrier; on movie lots he was an extra;
a delivery service go-fer.
Back and forth, right and left, helter-skelter, in his frenzied race,
puffing and panting, north south east west,
harried, exhausted, starving and sick, until crazed
one evening as the sun was going down
he planted his two feet down on the ground,
rolled his eyes back in his head and yelled
" Agh! What a dog's life this is! "

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than
Clankety-clank , heavy handcuffs were snapped on his wrists and Ando was dragged straight off to court.
Bang, Bang, Bang . . .
" State the charge. "
" The crime, your honor, of standing on the ground with his
two feet
and spitting out groundless rumors. "

" Oho! That's a big one! "

" The defendant, by standing on the ground and spitting out groundless
rumors, your honor, is guilty of

the impertinent use of feet without proper authorization;
the upstart relaxation of the corporal being;
the crime of tranquilizing the mind without permit;
plotting to usurp and expropriate the fundamental human
qualitative
substance, in plain disregard of the defendant's
own
wretched poverty;
the crime of wasting time in oafish cogitation;
perverse idleness;
the crime of harboring weak-willed thoughts of suicide;
being an idle bystander, as if he were some floating cloud:
looking up at the skies without shame;
tendentious expansion of the cranium;
the impudent trespass upon the special-class privilege of standing comfortably;
the impertinent neglect of our national policies for
INCREASED PRODUCTION
OF GOODS FOR EXPORT WITHOUT A
MOMENT'S REST;
opposition to the THREE NO's, the FIVE UN's,
SEVEN
DON'Ts, and the NINE
ANTINEGATIVITIES;

the crime of thinking up GROUNDLESS RUMORS
that
would BEWITCH THE PEOPLE
and CONFUSE THE WORLD;
the intent to pronounce said rumors;
the pronouncing of the same;
the intent to propagate said rumors;
the propagation of same;

the crime of INSUFFICIENT VENERATION FOR THE FATHERLAND;
DENIGRATION OF THE MOTHER TONGUE:
comparing the fatherland to an animal;
the crime of making it possible for other countries to conceive
of our fatherland as an animal,
thereby and in conjunction with DISTURBING THE ENVIRONMENT FOR CAPITAL INVESTMENT;

the crime of promoting social disorder and instigating unrest;
the crime of agitating the people;
the crimes of pessimism, being weary of life, other-worldliness;
providing comfort to the enemy;
harboring antisystem thoughts, and advocating same;
the crime of supporting by empathetic means the establishment of an
antistate organization or network or group;

the crime of promoting the clarification of personal self-
esteem,
fostering in turn the development of spiritual and
ideological self-reliance which inevitably nurtures the
consciousness leading to antistate riots;

in addition to which the defendant, for violating the
provisions of the special anti-antisocial
manipulation law, is hereby found guilty of all
crimes as charged. Therefore, in accordance with
the law, it is the solemn judgment of this court, that immediately upon adjournment
one head be removed from the defendant
to prevent further thinking or pronouncing of such groundless rumors;
two feet be cut off to forestall the
recurrence of inflammatory standing on the ground;
and to prevent the breeding of future
seditious types such as the defendant, that one
reproductive organ and two testicles be removed;
And finally and furthermore, whereas there is a clear
and present danger that defendant may resist, his two
hands are to be bound behind his back; he is to be
wrapped in one water-soaked leather straightjacket;
and the opening of his throat is to be jammed shut with
a hard, thick, and long-lasting voice-blocking tool; after
which he is to be put in solitary confinement for five hundred years. "

Bang, Bang, Bang.

" No, you can't! "
Snipsnap .
" My thing's gone! Don't! "
Snipsnap, snipsnap .
My balls are gone! Stop! You can't! Don't! "
Crea — k, Clank.
" My neck, my neck! Where? . . . "
Rattle Wham!
" Oh no! Not my legs too, gone at a stroke! "
The arms are bound in back;
the leather jacket;
the voice-blocking tool shoved in tight . . .
And so, pitiless they threw poor Ando into the moss-grown,
dark and dreary cell.

Shaa-Bang! The sound of locks, echoing farther
and farther away down the tunnels of the prison . . .
No!
This can't be! It can't!
How can it be?
How can it?

Starving, in rags, I worked nearly to death;
Beaten and yelled at, I didn't say a word.
No chance to rest, to sleep, even to lie down.
Then why has this happened?
What awful crime
has brought this unbearable punishment?

Oh geese flying so high!
You know what is inside me.
Tell me: where the millet stalks
reach their long shadows
though the heavy sunlight
by the newly-built road,
is my mother still standing,
waiting for me?
Weeping silently,
in clothes worn far past
their season, does her gaze
reach out, time and again
toward Seoul?

Dear mother, I shall return home;
return, even though I die.
Though my dead body be torn
in a thousand, ten thousand pieces,
I shall return.
Through this wall,
over the next,
even as a spirit
I shall pierce and vault
these red brick walls.
I shall return, mother;
even in death, I shall return.

Ando would have cried out this song,
but what tears, what voice did he have?
Without any tears or voice, deep within
each night he sang out his crimson, blood-red
No! No! NO!

Roll, then,
roll your body,
beating with it
K'ung .
Again, and yet again

he slammed into the wall:
K'ung .
K'ung, K'ung .

There were those who couldn't sleep at all when they
heard that sound rising up,
people with money, the ones who could
really
blow the wind right by. They sent out their strict orders
to have that fellow executed,
and yet
K'ung .

It's a strange business, how that sound seems to drive
some people mad.

K'ung K'ung:

You can hear it now, night and day, never ceasing.

There are some who call it the work of a ghost;
others will tell you it is Ando, somewhere
still living,
and ceaselessly hurling himself against the walls.
They say this stealthily, whispering from ear to ear,
while a strange light flashes from their eyes.